Laneth's starship
Laneth's starship was a type of small warship in the service of the Klingon Empire under the command of a Klingon Augment, Lieutenant Laneth. It was armed with disruptors. In 2154, Laneth's starship attacked and destroyed a that kidnapped Phlox from Earth. The Klingon ship then transported Phlox to the Qu'Vat Colony. Later, Laneth's starship engaged , which was analyzing the freighter's debris. During the engagement, a boarding party was dispatched, and planted a computer virus on board Enterprise. In the process of the raid, one of Laneth's crew members, Marab, was captured while attempting to return to his ship. ( ) Background information In the final draft script of "Affliction", Laneth's starship was described as "a small, sleek alien vessel." That description was followed by a bracketed note which pointed out, "Although we don't know it, this vessel is a new type of Klingon ship." "Affliction" teleplay writer Mike Sussman once remarked, "The reason that ship exists was because we wanted to hide the fact that the people beaming aboard ''Enterprise were Klingon." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 16) This configuration of Klingon ship, which is similar to a 22nd century style of , was designed by John Eaves. When the Klingon Augments' ship first appeared, it wasn't meant to look recognizably Klingon at all, so as to initially conceal the identity of the ship's Klingon crew members. As a result, Eaves was asked to make the vessel seem as if it might be Klingon without looking too familiar. "VFX Producer Peter Lauritson wanted something really different for this," Eaves recalled. "''He didn't know if he wanted us to go retro or for a sleeker version, or exactly what he wanted, but he was very clear he didn't want to have a ''Bird-of-Prey. He said do something completely different, make it angular, make it something that we've not seen before. That was the guidance behind the design." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, pp. 10 & 16) Because there had been so many ''Star Trek productions and associated spacecrafts by the time Laneth's ship was designed, giving it a completely new look was challenging. "It was kind of like I had writer's block. I didn't know what other shapes to do!" John Eaves exclaimed. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, pp. 10-11) He began the design process by drawing three rough concept sketches. One of the illustrations, showing quite a familiar Klingon design with wings and an extended neck, was immediately rejected for looking too familiar. Another of the designs demonstrated a style that was much smaller and more compact, while also resembling Goroth's starship from ENT Season 2 offering . "Peter Lauritson liked that shape," Eaves recollected, "so we went with that for a while." Despite this concept having some traction, the notion of using it as the Klingon craft fell by the wayside. For the third sketch, Eaves drew a more radical departure, illustrating a configuration which was partly similar to the compact design. However, Eaves extended it back and blended it into the shape of an engine pod from a battle cruiser. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 11) This concept was granted approval and Eaves was asked to use it as a starting point for a more finished design. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, pp. 11-12) The design of this vessel was thereafter influenced by John Eaves reacting to his "artist's block" by heading to the Paramount mill, which was somewhere new and different for him to look for inspiration. He later recalled, "They had this long level that bowed in the middle – you'd hang it on a string and it would give you a floating level – and that was where the shape for this ship came from." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 12) Using this as an inspiration, John Eaves created three alternative designs that he could show the producers. "We came up with these very unusual shapes," he noted. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 12) Though all three of the designs had dimensions that John Eaves considered "really strange" and extremely long, the ships he was designing were, in his mind, all relatively small. "There was a point where they said no windows and no lights so you really don't have a sense of scale," he continued. "Normally that was our guide. As I drawing I figured it was not necessarily super small; it had a crew of maybe 15 or 20 people." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, pp. 12-13) Some of the Klingon ship designs were essentially wingless; John Eaves truncated the wings but didn't remove them entirely. He based this look on aircraft-carrier aircraft when they have their wings folded up. "I thought it would be cool if that was the basis of the design," Eaves related. "The wings would have been stationary – they don't extend – but it looked like they folded out." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 12) A couple of the three designs ultimately weren't recognizably Klingon. "It was almost like a stealth dart as opposed to a winged vehicle .... We ended up with this very Egyptian shape. The only thing that would distinguish them as Klingon," John Eaves supposed, "was the kind of break up I had on the panels." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 12) The producers concluded the wingless designs were too much of a departure and didn't seem Klingon enough. The version they selected was most like the lengthy vessel from John Eaves' original concept sketches, with shorter but still very recognizable wings. When it came to deciding the color of the ship, the producers chose to retain a distinctively Klingon color. "I asked what color they wanted," Eaves recalled. " Do you want a grey or a dark metal or something?' He said, 'Let's go with the green but don't put markings on it.' I guess the idea was that without markings you wouldn't know it was Klingon." (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 13) ]] Although John Eaves was only beginning to learn how to use the computer program Photoshop, he tried to use it to digitally render the chosen ship design. "''This was the very first thing I did in Photoshop .... I drew it with a mouse on a laptop," he explained. Despite Michael Okuda offering to help, Eaves found it enormously difficult to carry out this work on the craft. "In the end I printed it and did pencil on top of it!" he exclaimed. (Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, issue 53, p. 13) de:Klingonisches Augmentschiff Category:Klingon starship classes Category:Unnamed Klingon starships